My life from the heart of Berlin!

Archive for the tag “garlic”

The month is not even over but I’m already short of money. I was thinking what to do to avoid spending even more money for food this week. I took a look into my fridge to check what I could use up. I had tomatoes, onions, garlic and a lot of vinegar. The first thing that came to my mind was a salsa, but not the typical salsa in the form of a dip or sauce. I wanted to make something more like antipasti, an appetizer to be eaten with bread. One more thing I had at home were physalis fruits, so the idea came up to make a half spicy, half sweet salsa. Of course, I will tell you what I did differently when preparing my salsa. Please keep in mind that my recipe is only for a small bowl of salsa. If you want to prepare more salsa, you need to multiply the ingredients according to your needs!

Ingredients

4 – 5 roughly chopped tomatoes, stems removed

12 chopped physalis

1 diced onion

3 roughly chopped garlic cloves

3 cayenne chilis or jalapeno pepper

3 – 5 black olives

1/2 cup chopped parsley or other herbs

1 tsp cumin

1 tsp sea salt

1 tbsp fresh lime juice

1/3 cup white wine vinegar

Instructions

Peel the husks off the physalis fruits and rinse well in cold water. Roughly chop or quarter the physalis fruit.

Start with chopping up 4 – 5 medium sized fresh tomatoes. Prepare the onion, the garlic, the olives, the parsley and the chilies in the same way, chopping them in chunky pieces and combining all the ingredients in a big pot. Set aside some of the seeds from the chilies if you don’t want your salsa to be too spicy.Now add the sea salt, cumin, lime juice and a 1/3 cup of red wine vinegar into the pot with all the other ingredients. You can also use fruit vinegar and mix it with red wine. Cook on medium heat for about 20 minutes, until everything is simmering and tender. To make a salsa dip or sauce puree with an immersion blender and cook everything for another 20 minutes on medium heat, stirring occasionally until it starts to be slightly thickened.

To make a chunky “antipasti” salsa like I did, don’t use an immersion blender. Simply cook the ingredients for 20 – 30 minutes, then separate from the vinegar and put into a mortar if needed.Salsa is really easy to make and you can prepare it in so many different ways and tastes! I could save some money by simply using up everything I had at home and turning it into this colorful appetizer. Serve it with some bread or use it as a substitute for a salad!

I love to keep a basil plant at the kitchen window but due to the unsteady temperature conditions it is not so easy to keep it alive for long as well as it is not so easy to use it up fast enough. The best thing to do in that case is to make a basil pesto! I have never done a pesto before but my blog is basically all about trying new recipes and learning new things.

There are basil pesto recipes for a classic basil pesto but actually pesto is always made to taste, based on the ingredients at hand. That really comes up to my own philosophy about using for a recipe what I find in my kitchen. Most basil pesto recipes include pine nuts/walnuts and parmesan cheese. I did not have these ingredients at hand so I left out the nuts and used a creamy feta cheese. Of course, you can adjust the ingredients to your taste!Basil Pesto with goat cheese

Ingredients

1 1/2 – 2 cups fresh basil leaves

1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil

1/2 cup freshly grated parmesan or goat cheese

3 garlic cloves

1/2 tsp salt

1 tbsp peppercorns or freshly ground pepper

1 tsp lemon juice

Instructions

Wash the basil and remove the leaves from the stems. Combine the basil leaves, garlic cloves, goat cheese and the peppercorns in a food processor. Pulse until everything is perfectly blended together. Add the olive oil in a constant stream while the food processor is on. Scrape down the sides of the food processor a few times with a spatula.

Since I do not use any nuts for my pesto I try to give it a special flavor with the type of salt and pepper that I’m using. My peppercorns have different colors and are freshly cracked in the food processor. If you do not have a food processor or you prefer to use a mortar you need to be very accurate when grinding the peppercorns. I like to use a mortar and to work with my hands instead of letting the food processor do all the work.The salt that I’m using is a special himalaya salt with a light pink color. It has a very strong and aromatic flavor.Add 1 tsp lemon juice and 1 tsp lemon zest. This will give the pesto a fruity taste and balance the garlic.Your pesto is ready to be served! Serve with pasta, baked potatoes or even with fried fish.This is a very simple recipe and you can even safe your pesto in the fridge for several days to use it for many dishes. Pour a thin layer of olive oil over the top of it like I did so that it does not turn brown!